I saw The Lucky One earlier this evening, mainly to see Zac Efron. Luckily (no pun intended), he did not disappoint.
The film is a typical Nicholas Sparks film, with a nearly improbable love story, sloppy kisses in the water and a death. Here is the plot: Logan (Zac Efron) is a marine, serving his third tour in Iraq. After a night raid, he finds a picture of a girl in the rubble. This photo saves his life, and after finishing his tour, he sets out to find this girl. However, first he goes home to his sister and her family, but here he suffers from PTSD, unable to let the war and fighting go. After leaving her home, he walks (yes, folks, he walks) from Colorado to Louisiana just to find the photo girl. He finds her. She is Beth (Taylor Schilling) a young woman who lives with her Nana (a delightful Blythe Danner) and young son, Ben. She is a former day care teacher, but now after her Nana's weak stroke, she moved back with her to help her run a dog care center, which boards and trains dogs. Beth does not want to hire Logan, but Nana does and Logan proves to be a hard worker, and to Beth's annoyance, is always around. Soon, Beth begins to fall for Logan, but there is someone in her way, or rather, someone. Her nasty devil of an ex-husband, Keith (Jay R. Ferguson). She married him because she was pregnant, he asked, but that didn't stop him from seeing other women. Yeah, ladies, he certainly was a keeper. Fortunately, Beth did toss him to the curb, but Keith still has a hold on her because of their son they had together. Never mind that Keith is not a great father, too pushy and forceful with his son, and he forbids Beth to see Logan or else he will fight her for custody. However, Beth, after some encouraging words from Nana, stands up to Keith, saying that she will fight him every step of the way over custody of Ben. She and Logan get together, but then Keith, after breaking in (improperly, I may add) to Logan's apartment to find the photograph of Beth. This sets the plot into motion. Keith informs Beth of this, Beth gets mad at Logan, for not telling her but also the fact that she gave the photo to her brother, Drake a fellow marine, who died. The main scene of action occurs after Keith gets drunk. He tries to get Logan to leave, takes an apple from Logan's grocery bag, bites into it and spits it back in his face all before taking his gun (he is a policeman, after all) and pointing it at Logan. His buddy tries to get him to leave, though Keith isn't ready for that yet. Instead, Logan wrestles the gun away, quickly points it at him before removing the bullets from it. However, chargers are never filed. Like that would really happen. And Keith decides that, for whatever reason, he is just going to come into Beth's house and take Ben, but he doesn't succeed. Ben runs away during the nasty rainstorm and tries to cross the drawbridge to get to his tree house, but the storm causes the bridge to break. Keith goes after him, and Logan and Beth follow him. Logan manages to save Ben, but before he can return to save Keith, the tree house crashes onto Keith, killing him. Part of me even felt sad over his death. After this, though everything falls into place. Beth and Logan end up together, and everyone is happy.
Personally, everything fit together a little too nicely, and it was overall way too predictable, but the performances were good. Taylor Schilling, whom I have never heard of before, did great. Zac Efron was also delightful though he was too young, and looked it, for the role. Still, at least this script wasn't nearly as awful as his latest leading effort, Charlie St. Cloud, though they start out similarly, with him nearly dying both times. This film, however, is far from a comedy, meaning it only fits into one genre, romance and thus is covered in sap, but you won't get stuck in it for too long. Grade: B
